


Small-Time Odyssey

by willowbilly



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Death Fix, Deus Ex Infinity Stone, Erik Killmonger Lives, Gen, Gun Violence, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Black Panther (2018), Resurrection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-03-25 23:36:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13845411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowbilly/pseuds/willowbilly
Summary: They drag him from his rest and he feels the life surge back into his lungs, feels it spark in the intricate organic circuitry of his brain and bloom through his nerves and veins and muscles and marrow like lightning. It hurts. Itsears.But Erik is accustomed to a little pain.





	1. Chapter 1

They drag him from his rest and he feels the life surge back into his lungs, feels it spark in the intricate organic circuitry of his brain and bloom through his nerves and veins and muscles and marrow like lightning. It hurts. It _sears._ But Erik is accustomed to a little pain.

It's when his first indrawn breath sucks sand into his mouth and nose that he panics. Thrashes upwards against the light weight enveloping him and towards clean, clear air. The red sand is thrown from his body in sheets, in hissing ribbons and rooster tail arcs. With how fine it glitters you'd think it'd be soft but it scrapes so gritty between his molars that the sound of it lances right through the enamel and pulp of his teeth and straight into his skull, and he can barely swallow, let alone breathe, around the few grains which have caught in his throat.

There's some commotion going on around him. Ring of people beholding him and shit. Celebratory. The sand is thick in his lashes and with the way his eyes are prickling with tears against it his vision's still hazy. He keeps coughing until he can finally, really fill his starving lungs. Takes long enough that he goes lightheaded and his diaphragm aches. The tears build up enough to overflow and skim down his cheeks. Saltwater like the ocean they should've fucking buried him in.

He's going to make them regret this. They'll damn well _rue_ it before they die.

“You _live,”_ says one of the people around the sandpit. Some middle-aged man in ceremonial paint and a long robe not unlike what Uncle James was wearing when Erik killed him, before he'd chucked His Majesty over Warrior Falls. The color and style are different though. Merchant tribesmen, not priests.

The guy exclaims it like he himself is astonished. An imperative emphasis on the _you,_ an even greater interrogative inflection on the goddamn _live._ Erik glances around to double check, but the man is, indeed, addressing Erik.

“Seems that way,” Erik replies with equanimity, though his voice grates rough. He shakes his head to rid his hair of the sand. Runs his tongue around his teeth and spits. The sand's so dry that it doesn't absorb the saliva when it lands.

His scars are gone. Skin smooth and untouched as when he was a kid.

His scars are gone thanks to whatever resurrection bullshit they've pulled but his hair and its style hasn't changed a whit. Not one lock, not one buzzed edge.

Go figure.

“Where's His Highness?” Erik asks. He wavers a touch when he stands but he finds his balance quickly. He feels strong. Energized.

Also very nearly naked.

At least the sand cascades off more easily. There's an Anakin Skywalker joke to be made here. He's not sure an isolationist-as-fuck audience would get it, though.

“The false king T'Challa—”

“False king?” Erik says. The guy shuts up, but he's late about it, rolling on to get all of T'Challa's name out before his momentum leaves him. Not used to being interrupted, miffed about it happening now, and furthermore trying to hide his reaction.

“Yes,” says the man. He begins to slowly wring his hands, the papery skin of his palm sliding loud over that of the opposite knuckles. “We are loyal to _you._ To _your_ claim to the throne.”

The group gathered around Erik is composed of the robed and painted guy, a few more older folks likewise dressed up for the occasion, and _quite_ a few ragtag mercenary types who're dressed considerably down. Some self-entitled Wakandan stuffed shirts and their hired muscle.

“You saying my cousin didn't have nothing to do with me being brought back?” Because Erik _had_ been brought back. He'd been dead, and now he wasn't.

He has to be careful not to get trapped by that thought. Almost misses the guy's response.

“No, he did not. We liberated your body before it could be transported out of Wakanda on the false king's orders. And at _great_ risk and expense, _we_ brought you _here,_ and revived you.”

“Huh,” says Erik, stepping out of the sand and onto stone. The whole place is a knockoff of that subterranean garden with the heart-shaped herbs, albeit smaller, and gloomier. There are heart-shaped herbs here, too, though. Wild, kinda weedy things sprouting from crevices, casting their soft purple glow up the bare rock walls. There are several harvested ones discarded around various implements beside the pit. A bowl and pestle. Couple syringes, a bit of paper and plastic detritus. Something that looks like a high tech, very compact generator set with a tiny but enormously bright and obviously magical crystal. “You bring the dead back to life a lot around here?”

“It is next to impossible outside of legend,” says the man, in sonorous seriousness.

“Pretty sure it's supposed to be impossible, on the usual,” says Erik.

“Not without great risk and _great_ expense,” the man repeats meaningfully, lacing his fingers together and indicating the crystal with a shallow bob of his clasped hands. “We have tried and failed on other occasions throughout history. Our success here means that our cause in backing you, to return you to the throne, is indubitably, _celestially_ in the right.”

“Or that you have a glittery-ass magic rock,” Erik says.

The guy doesn't like that. His mouth thins in displeasure ever so slightly, and it takes him a few moments to swallow it away and relax into obsequiousness again. “Nevertheless, we await your orders.” His hands unfold and he performs the Wakandan salute, arms thumping across his chest and his chin inclining deliberately, steeply downwards. “My king.”

The nearest mercenary has moved in behind Erik, close enough that the back of his neck tingles. Close enough.

Erik spits again, this time down between his and the robed guy's feet, and chuckles. Can't help but shake his head a bit too. Just at the sheer audacity. The _stupidity._ Goddamn. “So, what. You guys thought you'd bring the bloodthirsty outsider back, point him at your rival's throat, and if I won you'd've earned yourselves favor enough that I'd let you to stick your collective hand up my ass and use me as your political puppet?” He scoffs. “Nah. Thanks for disrespecting my dying wishes, though. Really appreciate it.”

The man drops the salute and winds his hands back together, his knuckles standing out pale with how tight he's flexing them. “We are as much outsiders to Wakanda as you are, _Killmonger,”_ he sneers. More offended at his cute charade being clocked than he is afraid, and foolishly defiant in his offense. “You wanted liberty for our people. For us to _ascend._ We have no qualms with that. We want that, too. But why should our voices in Wakanda matter only as much as the common citizen's? Only as much as the miner's or the engineer's or the artisan's? Especially now that King T'Challa has revealed us to the world, and opened up so very many choice opportunities for profit, but from which he is _barring_ us. We want what is best for our people, so we deserve the best that our people can give us. We deserve _more._ ”

It's shockingly nice to hear that T'Challa let the panther out of the bag, so to speak. That he's facing reality in one way or another.

“You're greedy assholes is what you are,” Erik says. “Some philosophies might even say 'bourgeoisie pigs,' but that ain't exactly my expertise.”

The fancy Wakandans shift and mutter and their ringleader goes practically apoplectic. “You _owe_ _us,”_ he snarls.

Erik takes a step back. This puts him in range to disarm the mercenary behind him and flip him around to use as a shield as Erik shoots every single person who doesn't look like they're getting a paycheck to be here. Barely anybody, really. Small crowd.

Robed ringleader goes down first, in a neat head shot. Some of the others turn to run and Erik gets them in the back. Machine guns are damn effective things; he puts an excess of bullets into fallen and falling bodies just to be sure that nobody's lying around dying slow and agonized. Wings a bodyguard trying to be brave. Lot of blood and assorted chunks of gore flying around but the real show is the way the spray of bullets spatters into the rock, showering chips and shards and dust, and how the noise triples into something deafening in the enclosed space, echoing loud enough to ring the ears even after Erik empties the clip and the gun falls silent.

The mercenaries are for the most part scattered into defensive crouches. Some were smart enough to take proper cover and return fire. Erik's human shield is dead and there's a hole in his calf leaking hot blood down to his heel which is going to sting later. Besides that, though, he's A-okay. Whatever took out the merc must've cut through somewhere which missed him and the poor bastard's flak vest took care of the rest.

“And there's the debt paid back,” Erik quips, dropping the machine gun in favor of a handgun he draws from the shield corpse's shoulder holster. Nice that the merc hadn't been professional enough to even have the safety on. Could've gotten awkward otherwise. “You guys mind stepping out?” he asks the surviving bunch. “Now that your bosses are outta commission and everything, there ain't really any point to you sticking around, you know?”

They leave.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Most of the dead merc's clothes fit him. Erik finds medical gauze and bandages in an abandoned first aid kit which has already been picked over for whatever preparation they'd put his body through before burying and zapping him. He cleans and does up his calf. The wound is a straight in and out from a small caliber round which just barely nicked the bone but missed any important arteries. His emergency medical know-how isn't too shabby, although he does have to resist the morbid urge to wriggle his index finger into his own goddamn meat. Then he dresses, wrestling with the corpse's limp weight and wobbling on his injured side as he laboriously tugs and balances and recites a very calm litany of swear words to himself.

His voice and the soft pat of his initially bare and eventually booted feet are the only sounds besides the occasional drip of water and a faint, insidiously soothing hum which he finally realizes is emanating from the magic crystal. A mellow, melodious electric frequency which shivers just barely within hearing range. Which sounds more and more human the longer he listens to it, or more like human words, or like the _concept_ of human words. Or like the _feeling_ of the concept.

Erik stops listening.

Bad news is he'll be limping and the merc's clothes are covered in blood. Good news is that the merchant ringleader's robe is relatively unstained, hides most of the rest, and accents the body armor rather nicely. The first aid kit makes for a nifty suitcase, too. Accessorizing is everything in an outfit.

Speaking of; Erik turns to the brooch-size magic rock and studies it. There's an alluring champagne brilliance to it, swirling around in its own blinding fractal depths like there isn't a middle to it at all, but, rather, an endlessness. Sparkling, shifting shards of pale golden space and time packed smaller and smaller, folded over and over and unto forever in and around themselves to form an impossible origami creation of impeccable ovoid smoothness. And it seems weirdly alive, pulsating with shade and noise and temperature all alike, all slickly interchangeable. And it... it _is._ He thinks the thing is _singing._

“Nope,” says Erik, and turns away. Then he turns back because he can't very well just leave an artifact which has the apparent power to help bring the dead back just lying around in an abandoned cave, waiting there for absolutely anybody to come trip over it and claim it for themselves. Waiting to be used on any other moldering motherfucker whom somebody fancies reviving.

There are some people who should stay gone.

It takes a little ingenuity and an excellent Wakandan knife, but he dismantles the generator thing and pries the crystal rock from the front without having to touch it. Odds are it's radioactive or some shit. And even if it isn't, Erik doesn't trust it enough to risk putting it to bare skin. Not with how the stick he finds to poke it with kind of chars and starts to honest-to-god _smoke,_ and with how the crystal's humming shifts into an offended wasp's nest buzz at the indecorous disturbance. Vibranium seems more than a match for it, though, and he takes full advantage of that fact, using scraps of the generator itself as levers and tongs and scavenging a pouch of vibranium-laced fabric to scoop the thing into once it's finally popped free.

The pouch goes around his neck, the machine gun gets ditched but the handgun goes into his new shoulder holster, and Erik is ready to set off when he steps on the discarded heart-shaped herbs at the side of the sand. The stalks crackle, already drying out. They'd go up easier than the others.

He should've known there'd be more herbs hidden away elsewhere. Ones growing outside of the garden he'd put to the torch. Maybe even seeds, kept secret.

There'd been a moment when he was watching that last sunset, taking in the view his dad had told him was the most beautiful in the whole world, when it'd reminded him of those hungry fires. The silken oranges and yellows and reds, flickering, the heat beating against him and bringing out the fullness of his pulse until it crawled like a supplication. And he'd felt a little pang of shame which had melded into and amplified the greater grief of regret. Of realization.

After years. After _years_ he had finally made it to his father's almost mythical birthplace, to his ancestors' homeland, to the nigh on sacred cradle of humanity itself. Only to spit upon traditions practiced and treasured there since time immemorial. He'd scorned that which he should have upheld and uplifted. Tried to burn its heart down to the roots.

He _had_ burned it. He had burned the garden.

Erik looks down at the sad stalks with their curling leaves, crushed beneath the chunky rubber tread of his stolen boots.

He stoops down and picks them up. He gathers a few of the others, a few whole ones, pulling them up as unharmed as he can, the seeds or the bulbs or the fruits within still radiating lovely, hopeful light. Violet candles in porcelain lanterns. He makes sure to leave plenty safe behind to flourish where he'd found them, just in case. But he takes the rest with him.

Just in case.

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The cave isn't as deep as the gardens were and the entrance opens out into a stream beneath an overhang around one narrow turn of stone. It's amazing how much everything changes after a few steps, though. The even lukewarm temperature and still air goes rapidly cold and windy, and the cave's quiet is overtaken by the rush of running water against rocks. Erik has to squint against the morning sunlight as the aridity and the altitude causes his breath to catch for a moment. Lungs sucking as if the spearhead's only just been pulled out at the sight of the sunrise.

The cave must've started out as a sort of glacial arroyo carved out by countless spring melts, with some long ago human excavation to accentuate the natural erosion and create an elevated pocket within where the soil for the herbs wouldn't be washed away. The pit, on the other hand, had to have been a much more recent addition. The sand in it, too. Necessary for the heart-shaped herb to have any effect, or simply ritual trappings. Pomp and circumstance to soothe the indignity of zapping him with Dr. Frankenstein's crystal powered defibrillator. Patent pending.

Either way, they definitely did pump Erik up with some of that herb juice. It feels the same. Makes everything a bit sharper, a bit smoother. Strength and stamina boosted. Reflexes and senses heightened.

Damn, but his leg hurts just that little bit more, too.

Erik psyches himself and then hops into the water with both feet. The chill of it hits before the wet does. Eats ravenous through the boots and socks and straight into his bones but almost overrides the pain of the leg wound, it's so sharp. He clenches his jaw and deals with it mainly by ignoring it as best he can. Focuses on the warmth of the light on his face. Wades through to the edge of the overhang, where the peaceful albeit very unheated sort of kiddie pool Jacuzzi area gives way to deeper waters and a faster current. He braces himself so he doesn't slip and looks out over a twisting tumble of interlaced rivers, scrubby, gnarled, ancient looking thickets and trees, and the jagged snow capped peaks which lunge up towards the wide blue sky far above.

This is the Jabari Land, fierce and bright and wind-battered. Erik's apparently never even left Wakanda.

“Figures,” he mutters, and skirts close alongside the rock wall, sinking into more dangerous waters in search of someplace to climb ashore.

At one point he loses traction on uneven rocks lurking slick and unseen beneath his heel, the water surging up to his waist as he stumbles into the waiting pull of the current, but he scrabbles for the bank and plasters himself to it before it sweeps him from his other foot and carries him away. Can't help but feel like an aquaphobic house cat dunked ignominiously into the bath as he claws his waterlogged ass out. Grass and dirt and crumbling splinters of beige shale grind under his nails after he throws the herbs up onto dry land to free both his hands, his boots uselessly blunt as he kicks them against the hard bank and castigates himself for not leaving his feet bare for just a while longer until he finally snags upon a hold solid enough to grant him the leverage he needs to heave himself up.

He wonders if the mercs and the merchants had a boat or something. Probably just one of those hovercrafts small enough to park right outside the damn cave entrance. Didn't even get their toes damp.

If he'd killed all of them he could've avoided this mess. If he'd killed all of them, they probably would've gotten a little luckier with their shots. Little else to lose.

He ponders all of this as he drags himself away from the river and rolls to lie on his back. Takes in the smell of sunbaked soil and crushed grass and stares up into the sky. Lets himself take a moment even though he's not nearly tired yet. Not even that shaken.

It's only the hard blue glare of the sky, really, endless and polished clean as the cerulean ceramic bowl which his mom inherited from her mom and which she used to keep empty and sitting in pride of place on the middle of their dinged-up kitchen table, the bowl he broke when he didn't listen to her about not playing ball indoors, which makes his eyes start to tear up. Only how bright it is.

First the sand and now this sky, piercing into the very backs of his sockets. Eyes'll be bloodshot all to hell.

A shadow crosses over him. Preceding some scavenger bird's arrival far overhead. A condor or a vulture or something, sailing atop an updraft on big, broad wings, wheeling in a lazy circle. Only flapping every now and then, and more for course correction than anything.

Erik never really learned what type of wildlife Wakanda has. Never obsessed over it and pored over all the memories of his dad's stories in any attempt to salvage every scrap of knowledge that he could. Not the way he did with Wakanda's tech and politics. Even the weather and terrain held more importance. His intelligence gathering didn't need to take into account anything about Wakandan fauna besides the fact that Wakandans had domesticated the rhinoceros well over five hundred years ago. At the end of the day rhinos kitted out in vibranium armor charging a designated enemy at thirty miles per hour was always going to be more pertinent to Erik's tactically inclined considerations.

But it's kind of a pretty bird. Or. Majestic vulture. Whatever it is.

He still raises his arm straight at it and flips it off. Just so it doesn't get any ideas.

Erik gets to his feet, retrieves his battered herb bouquet, and keeps walking.

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Erik follows the river as near as he can. It's rough going and sometimes it's too steep, with too many trees, for him to make his way right alongside, but he always makes sure to keep close enough to hear the musical burble of it. To catch the reflection of the sun off of it in the corner of his eye, shards of broken light flashing out between branches like shattered glass on Oakland concrete.

Wakanda, for all its splendor, is a tiny country. He knows this. He knows that under normal circumstances he could cross the entire thing within a day given the right incentive, the right gear, and an accurate map. Hell, he's hiked through shittier places before with over a hundred pounds of equipment on his back and armed hostiles on his ass. This should be a cakewalk.

It's not, though. His mind is playing tricks or something because he can't find the stillness inside himself, that patience which saw him through years of preparation. Years of killing. Maybe it's because he doesn't have some final goal this time around. Because he barely knows where or why he's still going.

Everything about the situation is annoying the everloving _fuck_ out of him. Sweat is dripping down him despite the cool air. Itches on his scalp, plasters his shirt to his spine, his collarbones. Flies and gnats keep going for his eyes and he has to squint and blink constantly. Sometimes their little goddamn carcasses get gummed in his eyelashes when he rubs at them instead of waving them away. They dart into his mouth when he opens it to breathe, and he's starting to get thirsty to the point where maybe it's going to be a problem, tongue fat and sticking and his saliva drying out. He works his mouth to try and get some spit back but there's nothing, just the pristine labyrinth of his teeth, hills and valleys interrupted by the occasional hidden fucking speck of scarlet diamond-grit sand still stubbornly lodged therein.

When he slides his tongue around in between his lips and his front teeth he discovers through feel that the gold on his lower canines is missing. The normal enamel isn't as slick, doesn't have that soft metal vibe, the ting, the taste. No buzzing alien separation from the skeleton.

He can't feel the War Dog tattoo on the inside of his lower lip.

He wouldn't be able to if it _was_ there, anyway. It's essentially sealed into the soft tissue. Nifty, high tech, and painless. No quick way to check its presence besides visually, and Erik doesn't have a reflection. The knives he's pilfered aren't shiny enough for one.

That's what he tells himself. He can't check because the knives aren't shiny enough. So for now he's just got to assume it's still there.

It's still there. It has to be.

It was the key his father gave him.

 _“Fuck,”_ he snarls, when his wounded leg gives out under him as he's beginning to clamber over yet another of the endless, treacherous piles of rocks in his path. He'd found one high, solid handhold, braced himself, and had hiked up his foot to start climbing when it just slid back off the sheer-edged ramp of stone and planted itself with a flat, decisive _thump_ in the grass, as if of its own damn accord. The whole leg is shaking and shuddering like that of a weak newborn calf's, throwing off his balance, but most disturbing is the way he can feel the severed, swollen strings of muscle cramping and twitching around the bullet hole even with the pressure of the bandages squeezing it all together. Aftershocks radiating out from ground zero.

 _Fuck,_ he thinks the magic crystal thinks _at_ him, from its little pouch prison around his neck. A curious childlike echo.

“Okay, you can just shut the fuck up,” he tells it. Doesn't deign to let it know it's spooked him in case it can smell fear or some shit. Just a firm order like a stern parent dictating bedtime. Apparently this works, too, because it doesn't say anything else.

He lays his forehead flat against the cool stone for a moment. Tries to gather his wits before they run the hell off on him.

He can't escape. Whatever this is, this second chance shit or what the fuck ever, he can't escape it. He won't be able to get through Wakanda's borders without pinging their security. He can't off himself because that's not the same as demanding he be permitted to die from a mortal wound gained in combat; while the idea of throwing away what those fancy asshole would-be insurgents forced on him has its appeal, he can't fool himself into believing that the guys he'd killed were the only organizers in their operation, and the idea of leaving them alone to follow through with whatever their Plan B is has his hackles up. He also can't just stay here and camp out off the grid. The assholes will track him down if he stays put and it'll amount to suicide all the same.

If he dies he won't be able to give these wild heart-shaped herbs to the people who'll plant them. Who'll cherish them and care for them and carry on the traditions.

If he does give them the herbs, he'll have to stand trial or something. He'll have to stay.

Erik raises his head from the stone when a familiar shadow passes over him, cooling his neck for a split second. When he looks to the sky he sees not a single vulture but several, wheeling overhead.

Hopeful bastards. Kind of weirdly endearingly so, though.

He turns to put his back to the rock and slides down until he's sitting, and he can stretch his legs out in front of him, and then he simply watches the birds for a while. For far too long.

The sun begins to wester. The blue of the sky gives way to gentle orange around it, the light dimming, the shadows graying. The frigid rock at his shoulders goes from soothing against his hot skin to uncomfortable as the temperature drops.

He weaves the bouquet into a wreath as he waits for the vultures to fly down and find the soft of him with the sharp of their beaks, to waddle over and peck out his eyes and his liver and to take this formless fog of inexplicably heavy sorrow from him, but somehow his feathered friends seem to know Erik isn't dead yet. The smooth-edged scimitar curves of the heart-shaped herbs' leaves and the thick, springy stalks and the slight, velvety dampness of the bulky lily-like flowers with their bloodless veins become all the same as they pass over and between his hands, the separate sensations blurring into indistinguishable cohesiveness, circular and endless. An ouroboros.

When the vultures have left and the first stars glitter in the clear twilight sky Erik drags himself further along the rock face until he finds an overhang which he can wedge himself beneath. He thinks of poisonous spiders and whatever creepy crawlies might have also found refuge in the gravel and drifted leaf litter there, but he figures, hey, if the universe decides to fuck him over like that, then it's only fair after all the other times it spared him. Que sera sera and shit.

He goes the fuck to sleep.

 

 

 

 


End file.
